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If you’ve dreamed of arguing a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, you’d better make sure you’re an attorney, because the court just shut the door on non-attorney arguments.

Literally, anyone could have argued in front of the Supreme Court, but practically, very few non-lawyers were allowed to try. The last was Samuel H. Sloan, when he represented himself in 1978 in a lawsuit involving stock trading, according to TheWashington Post.

He won 9-0.

The Court updated its 80-page rule book, and added Rule 28.8, which requires anyone arguing in front of the court be a lawyer.

The Post reports that until now, non-lawyers were not shy about applying to argue, and recently included a magazine publisher, an entrepreneur and a paralegal-in-training. They were turned down — the paralegal-in-training in the past year.

The U.S. Supreme Court may soon be deciding whether the Bay Mills Casino in Vanderbilt should close or stay open.

The U.S. Solicitor General filed a 24-page brief asserting the State of Michigan’s petition to keep the facility closed should be denied, reports the Gaylord Herald Times. The U.S. Solicitor General’s opinion was provided at the Supreme Court’s request.

The Court will decide by the end of June whether to hear the case.

“Regardless of how the issue might ultimately be resolved against other defendants or in other proceedings, the court of appeals correctly concluded that the issue cannot be resolved in an action by petitioner (state of Michigan) for injunctive relief against respondent,” the U.S. Solicitor General said in its brief.

“We disagree with the Obama administration and oppose off-reservation gambling, and we will be filing our formal response in the coming days,” said Joy Yearout, spokesperson for the Michigan Attorney’s General’s Office. “We will be encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case soon.”

The Bay Mills Indian Community opened a slot machine facility in November 2010 on property previously owned by Treetops Resort. Just one week later, the Little Traverse Band of Odawa Indians and the State of Michigan each filed lawsuits to stop operations. The Little Traverse Band argued the Bay Mills Community was operating illegally because the casino was not on sovereign land. Bay Mills tribal leaders claimed the facility was operating legally because the property was purchased with money from the Michigan Indian Land Claims Settlement.

The casino was forced to shut its doors in March 2011 after Judge Paul L. Maloney allowed an injunction against Bay Mills. Bay Mills then appealed to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled to keep the casino closed while the issue worked its way through the judicial system. But in August 2012, the 6th Circuit vacated the injunction. That decision raised the hopes of Vanderbilt residents that the casino would soon reopen. However, the casino remains closed as the case continues through the legal system.

Genesee County Treasurer Deb Cherry says the county will keep its high-profile battle with mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac moving forward.

The county is the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit against the federally chartered mortgage finance companies — a case that’s tied directly to a lawsuit filed by Oakland County against the same companies, Mlive is reporting.

Earlier this week, Oakland County officials said they plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in its claim that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owe them $1.5 million and the state $10.5 million in taxes. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the mortgage companies, which claim they’re exempt from all taxes as government entities.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts last year ruled that the exemption did not apply to state and local real estate transfer taxes, and allowed Genesee County to file its class action on behalf of all other counties in the state.

“I don’t know what the prospects are, but it’s an awful lot of money,” Cherry told Mlive. “We will all go forward.”

One of Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s “Women in the Law” for 2012 has additional honors to enjoy.

Newman

Valerie Newman of the State Appellate Defender Office was named among Lawyers USA’s seven “Lawyers of the Year,” citing her work on the Lafler v. Cooper appeal before the Supreme Court of the United States.

In the March 21, 2012, holding authored by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, the 5-4 majority ruled that a defendant who receives ineffective advice that results in rejection of a plea offer and conviction at trial may be entitled to relief from the sentence after conviction.

“I find criminal defense attorneys at the trial level often don’t do an adequate job of explaining the ramifications of [plea deals], but it is usually very difficult to prove,” she explained to Lawyers USA, a publication that, like MiLW, is a Dolan Company Publication.

Cooper case was unique in that a clear record showed defense counsel had mistakenly advised the defendant, who even wrote a letter to the judge asking to take the plea deal.

“It bothers me, because defendants don’t operate independently of their lawyer, and lawyers have a duty to properly inform their clients of what’s going on,” Newman told MiLW. “To me, this case exemplifies so many problems in the justice system.”

On July 26, 1983, the world gasped when it was discovered that Mick Jagger had reached the improbable rock ’n’ roll age of 40. That was when 40 was considered the new 30 (whereas today 50 is the new 40, or something like that).

This week, The Associated Press announced something even more astounding: the average age for the four remaining members of the Rolling Stones is nearly two years older than the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood have an average age of more than 68 ¾ years, while the Supreme Court justices’ average is 67 years.

So how does that stack up to the Michigan Supreme Court?

Pretty close, actually.

Of the four justices whose birthdates could be found — Chief Justice Robert Young Jr. and Justices Michael Cavanagh, Marilyn Kelly and Stephen Markman — the average age is 67 ½.

Then again, it’s the high court that hears “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” all the time — only it’s from the litigants at oral argument.

Valerie Newman, assistant defender at the State Appellate Defender Office in Detroit, will reflect on how she prepared for and successfully argued Lafler v. Cooper at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Her “A View from the Podium: Reflections on a Supreme Court Argument” presentation is 12:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4, at the Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.

In Lafler, Newman convinced a 5-4 majority that a defendant who receives ineffective advice that results in rejection of a plea offer and conviction at trial, may be entitled to relief from the sentence after conviction.

In the years leading up to the country’s high court, Newman — who was honored recently as one of Michigan Lawyers Weekly’s 2012 Women in the Law — said that the state courts were not willing to address the matter as a Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel argument. Instead, they wanted to blame the defendant.

Admission to the presentation is free, and lunch will be served. Learn more at http://law.wayne.edu.

Next week, the State Bar of Michigan will be at the Supreme Court of the United States — not as a means of seeking justice, but in recognition for helping others do so.

The SBM is one of five organizations chosen to receive the 2012 American Bar Association Grassroots Advocacy Award, for its efforts to increase funding for the Legal Services Corporation.

LSC helps provide legal aid for low-income Americans and is the nation’s single largest provider of civil legal aid to citizens who live on incomes below or near the poverty line.

In a statement, the ABA noted that in 2011 SBM “played an exemplary role in advancing access to justice by successfully advocating for adequate funding for LSC during the congressional budget allocation for fiscal year 2012. The State Bar of Michigan advocated for LSC funding through an ongoing grassroots legislative advocacy campaign that included urging congressional members on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to push for increased LSC funding.”

The bar “worked to prevent a potentially devastating $104.2 million (25.7 percent) proposed cut to the LSC budget of $404.2 million in fiscal year 2010. While the House of Representatives proposed funding LSC at $300 million, the Senate favored an allocation of $396 million. Ultimately, funding was set at $348 million, thanks in large part to efforts such as” the SBM.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, in Michigan v. Bryant, that the Confrontation Clause was not violated when police testified at trial that a gunshot victim identified his shooter in response to police questioning.

Covington was shot outside of Bryant’s house and managed to drive himself to a gas station. Someone called the police, who arrived before the medical responders. The police asked Covington, who was in great pain and having trouble breathing, who shot him. Covington named Bryant as the shooter. Covington died a few hours later.

The police testified at Bryant’s trial that Covington identified Bryant. Bryant was convicted of second-degree murder.

The MSC reversed the conviction, ruling that Covington’s statements were inadmissible testimonial hearsay.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the statements were not testimonial, and vacated the MSC’s decision.

Covington’s identification and description of the shooter and the location of the shooting were not testimonial statements because they had a “primary purpose … to enable police assistance to meet an on-going emergency.” Davis, 547 U. S., at 822. Therefore, their admission at Bryant’ s trial did not violate the Confrontation Clause.

When Covington responded to questions from the police

he was lying in a gas station parking lot bleeding from a mortal gunshot wound, and his answers were punctuated with questions about when emergency medical services would arrive.

Thus, this Court cannot say that a person in his situation would have had a “primary purpose” “to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” …

For their part, the police responded to a call that a man had been shot. They did not know why, where, or when the shooting had occurred; the shooter’s location; or anything else about the crime.

They asked exactly the type of questions necessary to enable them “to meet an ongoing emergency.” …

“Nothing in Covington’s responses indicated to the police that there was no emergency or that the emergency had ended. …

The officers all arrived at different times; asked, upon arrival, what had happened; and generally did not conduct a structured interrogation.

“The informality suggests that their primary purpose was to address what they considered to be an ongoing emergency, and the circumstances lacked a formality that would have alerted Covington to or focused him on the possible future prosecutorial use of his statements.

The Court vacated the MSC’s decision.

We leave for the Michigan courts to decide on remand whether the statements’ admission was otherwise permitted by state hearsay rules.

NEW YORK, N.Y. – September 23, 2010 – As the first Monday in October looms and the U.S. Supreme Court and its newly confirmed justice, Elena Kagan, look ahead to hearing new arguments, The Harris Poll asked Americans their awareness and opinions about some of the court’s practices. Although the Supreme Court heads one of the three branches of the U.S. government, two in five Americans (42%) say they are not knowledgeable about the Supreme Court confirmation process.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll of 2,775 adults surveyed online between August 9 and 16, 2010 byHarris Interactive.

Almost three in five (58%) Americans say they are knowledgeable about the process, with 14% saying they are very knowledgeable and 44% saying they are somewhat knowledgeable. However, Americans,65 and older (74%) and men (71%) are more likely to say they are knowledgeable on this compared to younger Americans, those 18-33, and women (both 46%).

During the confirmation process, however, a strong majority of Americans agree that nominees to the Supreme Court should be required to answer questions on specific issues (81%) and how they would vote in specific court cases, both past cases and hypothetical ones (63%) while just over half feel they should answer questions about their personal life (54%). Older Americans seem to be more strongly in favor of some of these types of interviews than are younger Americans, though. Over four in five (84%) of both Americans aged 46-64 and 65 and older agree that nominees should be required to answer questions about their views on specific issues, compared to three-quarters of those aged 18-33 who say the same (76%). Older Americans are also more likely to agree that nominees should be required to answer questions about their personal life (58% of those 46-64, and 68% of those 65 and older), compared to less than half of younger Americans (47% of those 18-33 and 48% of those 34-45), who say the same.

Older Americans are not the only ones who feel strongly about what should be required during these pre-confirmation interviews. Over three-quarters of Republicans (76%) say nominees should be required to say how they would vote in specific court cases, including both past and hypothetical ones, compared to 54% of Democrats and 63% of Independents who say the same. Similarly, 71% of Republicans think nominees should be required to answer questions about their personal life, compared to less than half of Democrats (49%) and Independents (49%) who think it’s important.

Type of Supreme Court Justice

When asked what type of person Americans would most like to see on the Supreme Court, half (51%) said someone who keeps their personal opinions of “right” and “wrong” to themselves and makes decisions strictly based on the letter of the law and the Constitution. One-third of Americans say they would prefer an independent thinker who uses creativity and an understanding of modern circumstances to inform their legal rulings (32%), just 6% say they would want someone who uses their own values or moral compass to guide their decisions, and one in ten are not at all sure what type of person they prefer (11%).

Looking by political party, a clear majority of Republicans (67%) prefer justices who make decisions based strictly on the letter of the law and the Constitution. Democrats are more split-45% say they prefer an independent thinker who uses creativity and an understanding of modern circumstances, while 38% say they prefer someone who makes decisions based strictly on the letter of the law.

Although all Americans don’t agree about all Supreme Court practices, they do say that the Court is a crucial governing body for the success of the United States (69%). In a sometimes rare show of similar opinion concerning policy, Republicans (71%), Democrats (74%), and Independents (70%) all agree on this point. Interestingly, women show more uncertainty on this, as 65% say that the Supreme Court is a crucial governing body for the success of the United States, compared to three-quarters of men (75%) who say the same. Just one in ten (10%) women say that the Supreme Court is not necessary-decision making power should lay within the state courts, and over one-quarter of women are not at all sure (26%).

So what?

Each time there is a Supreme Court confirmation, the debate begins anew as to whether these are productive or not. The confirmation process for Elena Kagan was no exception as she sustained rounds of hearings prior to being confirmed. One argument is the Senate should innately “trust” a President’s nomination and just provide “advice and consent.” However, the American public seems fairly strongly in favor of these interviews, at least on certain topics. Americans also broadly approve of the Supreme Court, yet many say they are not knowledgeable about its practices. This may call for better education in schools on the Supreme Court, which appears may have fallen off in recent years, considering the numbers of younger Americans’ knowledge, or lack thereof, compared to that of older Americans.

Methodology

This Harris Poll was conducted online within the United States between August 9 to 16, 2010 among 2,775 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Interactive avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris Interactive surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in the Harris Interactive panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

When Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearing start next week, senators will fire up the proverbial grill. But based on 75,000 e-mails sent to and from Kagan in the late 1990s – which last week were released by the Clinton Presidential Library – she has a pretty spicy past. As noted in a compiled story by The Week:

Kagan occasionally peppered her e-mails “with salty language,” including “a New Yorkerized version of the word ‘unbelievable’” that added two syllables to it.

She can be sarcastic: In critiquing a colleague’s e-mail, she replied: “Not to carp, but on memos to the president, it’s usually wise to spellcheck.”

She isn’t afraid to speak her mind: In an advance draft of Clinton’s 1997 State of the Union address, she clashed with speechwriters over a line that included a quote from Isaiah about being a “repairer of the breach” — a reference to Clinton’s desire for bipartisanship. “That quote from Isaiah is the most preposterously presumptuous line I have ever seen. The president would deserve it if the press really came down on him for this.” The quote stayed in.

She was enthusiastic about affirmative action: In one message she noted that presidential race adviser Chris Edley was leaving and lobbied to be put in charge of affirmative action in his place. “I know the issue well (because I teach it) and care about it a lot.”

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